The Kindertransport

aka Refugee Children's Movement

10,000 Lives Saved

In 1930‘s Germany no Jewish person was safe no matter there age. With Hitler‘s rise to power in early 1933 life for German Jews became even harder. Laws were imposed that would slowly demoralize many Jews. In late 1938 when it became obvious that things were not going to get better many parents started to desperately look for a way to get their children to safety. After the events of Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”) November 9, 1938 when SS soldiers vandalized thousands of Jewish businesses and Synagogues the world started to take notice.

A group formed in England called “Movement for the Care of Children from Germany” later to be shortened to the “Refugee Children‘s Movement”. The group aimed to save as many children from Nazi occupied Europe as possible. They came up with the solution of finding foster families for these children in British homes.

To accomplish this they first had to get the British government to relax immigration controls for these children. It was decided that an unspecified number of children up to the age of 17 would be allowed into the country. A 50£ bond would be posted for each child to assure and assist with there resettlement at a later date.

The children were to travel by sealed train to Holland where they would then take a boat to England. After arriving in England some of the children were taken in by foster families, others went to orphanages or group homes and still other went to work on farms. The children were placed in home through out England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Unfortunately while some children where taken in and became a part of their foster family many older children were taken in as a way of obtaining a free servant or were mistreated or abused. Many of the older children upon reaching the age of 18 would join the armed force‘s to fight against the Nazis.

It is estimated that after the war 20-25% of these children would eventually make their way to the U.S. or Canada. Today the surviving children of the Kindertransport still suffer from the emotional trauma of this time in their lives and have only begun to tell their stories in the last 20 years.

Terms to Know

Synagogue (sin-uh-gog, -gawg^† )

The Jewish house of worship (a church)

Kristallnacht (kRees-tahl-nahKHt^† )

November 9, 1938 the night that German SS Soldiers burned and destroyed synagogues and Jewish owned businesses. They also killed over 100 people and incarcerated almost 30,000 people in concentration camps.

Kinder

The nick name for survivors of the Kindertransport

Holocaust (hol-uh-kawst^† )

The systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II (usually preceded by the^† )

Nazi (naht-see^† )

A member of the National Socialist German Workers‘ party of Germany^†

^† Source Dictionary.com
^‡ Source The Association of Jewish Refugees

Sources for further study